Jazz Alum Robert Glasper Has a Hit with Black Radio

If you happened to be watching The Tonight Show on Monday night, March 19th you might have caught a glimpse of The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music alumnus Robert Glasper. Appearing with his group The Robert Glasper Experiment, the jazz graduate was performing Always Shine, from his latest album, Black Radio. All this media attention is for good reason; Glasper’s latest releasehas reached #3 on the Billboard Charts, with the album debuting at #15 in the beginning of March. According to The New York Times, Black Radio is the rare album of its kind that doesn’t feel strained by compromise or plagued by problems of translation. It convincingly mirrors the texture and mood of contemporary black bohemia, largely because Mr. Glasper and his band.,

Glasper, a jazz pianist and record producer, released his first record Mood in 2004 after graduating from The New School. His four subsequent records including Black Radio have been released by jazz label, Blue Note Records. And although he has long been identified strictly as a jazz artist, many have called this latest Glasper effort a crossover record, and much more. Kimberly Crowder from the Houston Chronicle commented, Glasper infuses genres without leaving any holes during transition mixing rock, R&B and hip-hop, melded with jazz undertones., The album includes genre-crossing guest such as rappers Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and Lupe Fiasco and singers Erykah Badu, Chrisette Michele, Musiq Soulchild and Meshell Ndegeocello.